“We feel that we’ve exhausted all the avenues available to us to take the registration services out to the country.

“Unfortunately, leading up to the last elections, there’s still a high number of people, namely the young ones who are not taking the requirement of the law seriously. So we’re left with little option but to implement what the Electoral Act obligated this office to do.”

Mr. Ainu’u said the O.E.C and the Ministry of Police are finalising charges for citizens who haven’t registered.

“We’ll be starting to serve them to defendants sooner than later.

“We’ve also identified and advertised a number of public servants who haven’t registered. So we have also sent those names to Police and charges are now being processed.”

As for Iosefatu, he told the Court that the reason he didn’t register was because he was busy.

But Judge Alalatoa did not buy this.

“The Office of the Electoral Commissioner had carried out a huge amount of work over the years to try and register all citizens eligible to vote,” Judge Alalatoa said.

Asked if he had known that the law required him to register, Iosefatu said he knew that he was supposed to register.

“You should because we all knew about the awareness programmes conducted by the Office on TV, radio and media,” Judge Alalatoa continued. “On top of that, the Office also went around the country a number of times yet you didn’t use that opportunity to register.”

She then convicted Iosefatu and fined him $200 to be paid to O.E.C by 4pm yesterday. Failure to do so will result to imprisonment of three months.

Judge Alalatoa reminded Iosefatu that voting is important in any democratic country.

“Your vote allows you to elect leaders of your preference that will represent your views in Parliament.”